feb. 27, 2009

OK. Sorry that this website hasn't been updated in about a year. Ridiculous, we know, but there is just too much happening to keep up with everything! (fortunatly our myspace site is up to date with videos and photos and news and such, so please visit us there) Great and beautiful changes are happening everywhere: in the macrocosm, we have a new president and have entered a new era... and in the microcosm of the Bethany & Rufus universe, we have been invited to play at the Daoula Music and Cotton Festival in Bamako, Mali, alongside such incredible performers as Oumou Sangare and Cheick Tidiane Seck. It is a tremendous opportunity for us, and we are planning to record, both sonically and visually, our journey of singing these old folk songs, most of them African American, back in West Africa, which is, ultimately, their origin.

After Africa, we are heading to France to record a CD with the National Radio there (Fip) on March 12. So, by March 13th, we will have a brand new record in the can, which should be out soon. It will feature a whole bunch of new songs with Bonga Jean Baptiste (from Haiti) on percussion and Yacouba Moumouni (of the group Mamar Kassey from Niger) on vocals and Fulani flute. Needless to say, we are psyched.

We are in Paris now running to catch our plane to Mali. See you in Africa via the blogosphere. xoxoxo, Bethany & Rufus

On a personal note from Bethany from Jan 25: "I just got back from Washington, DC and I am still walking in the dream of Obama. It is an incredible privilege to ride this train of history... I have been singing these old folk songs for many years now -- songs of history, of slavery, of hope and sorrow and emancipation -- but never (in my lifetime) have they felt so grounded, so real, so important as they did during the week of January 20th. I arrived in DC on the morning of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, one day before Obama's inauguration, just in time to open a panel discussion called Driving Change, put together by the Alliance for Justice. On the panel was Eli Pariser (MoveOn.org), Van Jones (Green for All, Center for American Progress), and JoDee Winterhof (CARE USA). Van Jones got up, with tears streaming down his face, overwhelmed by the significance of the day, and spoke about the need of each person to step into this new era with courage and responsibility... about what it really means to walk in the dream of Obama, and to work each day in our lives and in our hearts to hold that dream open so that a new reality can emerge. I am paraphrasing wildly, but that was the essence of what he was saying (you can see a video of the whole presentation HERE ) The week reaffirmed why I sing these songs, which to some may seem like anachronisms or just rooting around in the dust bin of the past, but I feel incredibly privileged to contribute in this way -- my way -- through this extraordinary music, which may be remnants of the past, but at the same time point the way forward as they reveal who we are, where we come from, and the spirit, and legacy, that we carry... ALL of us. With Love, Peace and HOPE, always. Bethany"


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